


with every beat of his cocaine heart

by crickets



Category: The Killing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-07
Updated: 2012-05-07
Packaged: 2017-11-05 00:12:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/399764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crickets/pseuds/crickets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Spoilers for 2.07, Keylela<br/>Title from Lana del Rey's Off to the Races</p>
    </blockquote>





	with every beat of his cocaine heart

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for 2.07, Keylela  
> Title from Lana del Rey's Off to the Races

He doesn't remember anything after he hits the ground. There's just blackness and pain. 

Later, he remembers the sound of birds. The smell of morning rain. He imagines a Monarch flapping its wings at his ear, then the tickle of it landing momentarily on his mud- and blood-encrusted wrist. He shivers as it flies away. 

_It's not real_ , he thinks. _All the Monarchs are half-way to Mexico by now._ But maybe, he tells himself, as a crack of thunder sounds overhead and he starts to lose consciousness once again, maybe this one stayed back. _Waiting for him._

Or maybe it just got lost. 

_He can relate._

\- 

And then there are sirens and barking dogs and voices. So many voices. Above them all, he can hear one he recognizes, one he knows. He reaches out for the voice, her hand connecting with his. 

"Don't try to talk, Holder," she whispers, her knees at his side, the other hand at his cheek. He tries to open his eyes, the name Sarah on his lips, but all he can manage to do is slip a matchbook into her palm before everything fades again. 

Somehow, through his haze, he knows she'll understand what to do. 

_She always does._

-

He wakes up again in the dark to the steady pump, pump, pumping of the IV. He clears his throat, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness, finds a cup of water at his bedside, drinks until it doesn't feel like he's swallowing needles. 

_He's alone._

In the chair next to him is a crumpled hospital-issued blanket and pillow, a silver pack of gum in the windowsill.

-

The kid's there a lot at first. With her. 

It's like they're holding some kind of beat-up junkie bedside vigil. 

They don't talk about the case much with Jack there. And he's pretty much always there -- in the mornings and then again after school. Until one day they're both gone, and he doesn't see Linden again until he's home and in his own bed three days later. 

He doesn't hear the front door, probably because of all that damn oxy, but he hears her come into his room. She looks pretty, wearing a pair of tailored pants and a purple blouse, her hair down in loose curls instead of her usual ponytail.

"Yo, Linden," he rasps. "You got a date?" 

She crawls into the bed with him, curling up at his side, and he can see that she's been crying. 

_No_ , he realizes. _These are court clothes._ And he doesn't think he ever noticed before just how tiny she is. She's always been a quiet one, but somehow she fills a room in a way that hides all that. Right now, lying in the fetal position next to him, she looks smaller than he's ever seen her before. 

"Jack?" he asks. But Linden just puts a hand to his lips. 

"Stephen, don't," she says. "Please?"

He nods, slips a hand over the bend at her knee. 

"I got you," he says. 

-

After that first night, she sleeps on the couch. 

She leaves fifty bucks on the counter. 

"For your trouble," she says. "I'll be out of your hair in a few days." 

Holder isn't about to ask for rent money, because damn, it ain't like she's got no where else to go, and he's not some kind of monster. Besides, she's like family anyway. But he says, "It ain't no thing, Linden," and he pockets the money anyway, knowing she would insist. 

"I know," she smiles up at him, and it's still early and she hasn't yet put on her mask and he can see that it's genuine. "But it's the least I can do." 

Holder clicks his tongue. " _Shoot_ , the _very_ least," he teases. "I mean, what you think? All this organic deliciousness grows on trees?" He cracks open the fridge. "I mean, well it does, but you know what I'm saying, right?" 

She laughs. 

\- 

"Do me a favor, Sarah?" he tells her some days later. 

"Yeah?" She looks up from the case file she's reading, her feet propped on his coffee table. 

Holder tosses her her two pill bottles, half empty already, which she catches.

"Get rid of those for me?"

Sarah stuffs them into her bag. 

"Sure thing." 

\- 

By the time he gets back to work, all the leads on the Larsen case have pretty much run dry. 

"Somebody wants to bury this, for real," he says to her once. 

"Yeah, well we can't let them," she says, her dark optimism shining through yet again. 

"'Less they really do us in this time," he says it, and there is weight behind his words because he's still got the scars to show for it. 

Sarah catches his gaze and he almost thinks she'll change her mind. Because broken promises and all aside, he ain't ready to die for this shit. But she doesn't. Instead she turns back to her computer screen. "We're gonna be fine."

-

It's past midnight at the station and Holder finds himself practically snoozing over a half-empty packet of corn chips and a mandatory fuck-off report - not exactly how he wanted to spend his first week back - when Linden turns up. He doesn't take his eyes off the computer screen when he notices her standing there in the doorway. 

"Linden, where you been, man? This damn paperwork is making me lose my freaking _mind_. Isn't it your turn to fill this shit out anyway?"

When she doesn't answer, he looks up to find her dripping wet and staring straight ahead, her fingers clasped tightly around her gun. "The fuck?" Then he's at her side and ushering her into the room, closing the door and the blinds behind her. "What the hell happened?" 

He puts his hands at her shoulders and gives her a sharp, tiny, shake, because she's got this blank look on her face. (Which really, isn't all that unusual when he thinks about it. He could never exactly get a read on her until she was kicking him out of her car.) He says her name, louder this time, and she makes the slightest eye contact, just enough to let him know she heard him, before she closes her eyes and drops her head. She lets him take the gun from her hand and her body is loose, like somebody let all the air out of her. 

"You scared the the shit out of me," he whispers, but at least she's reacting now. 

_At least she's breathing._

She shrugs out of her jacket, and tosses it to one of the chairs by the window. She takes a step closer to him, the back of his knees connecting with the desk chair until he loses his balance and has to sit down. 

"Sarah," there's a question in his voice when she straddles his lap, using his shoulders for balance before pressing her weight, slight as it may be, over him. His breath hitches in his throat and she leans over him, their mouths almost touching. 

"Just," she says, her eyes shutting momentarily, a pause on her lips when he slips his hands around her waist, his fingertips sliding under the bottom of her t-shirt at her back. "Don't talk, alright?" 

"I..." he starts, but she presses a finger to his lips and instead he nods, and then she crushes their mouths together. Holder can't even really think. His last sexual experience was _unsatisfying_ , to say the least, and the time before that was longer ago than he cares to remember. All he knows now is that his partner is on top of him unbuttoning his jeans and that if he can't get it up he might as well become a monk or some shit. But those thoughts quickly fade away because her fingers brush against his cock and his hips jerk and there ain't no question about what's about to happen here. 

Soon she's got her jeans off and he slides her t-shirt up underneath her arms, and pushes her bra up along with it, only half-exposing her breasts and nipples, and he takes one into his mouth. She gasps, and reaches between them, guiding him inside of her. Holder's head jerks back, breaking contact, and he kisses her again as she moves up and down on top of him. He's never been a minute man, but damn, she feels good, and even though it's clear she needs this way more than he does, he doesn't know how much longer he's going to be able to hold out. 

"I don't know if I can," he says and all he can think is that it has been so, _so_ , long.

"Just wait," she says, through ragged breaths. "Please?" 

The sound in her voice when she says that last word, _Please_ , is almost enough to make him come right then and there, but he somehow manages to restrain himself. He knows it won't last long though, so he slides his hand from her waist to her middle, his fingertips brushing over her clit. Sarah gasps out loud and Holder swallows it with a kiss. He tries to focus on other things, the hum of the computer, the sound of the chair squeaking underneath the weight of them, the sharp pain in his left side, but then he catches the faintest scent of her shampoo and it's pretty much all over from there. He comes first, resists uttering an apology as he does, and then helps her finish, watching her face shudder under his fingertips. 

After, Sarah dresses and puts her jacket back on, taking the gun from the desk. 

"We'll talk tomorrow," she says. "I'll see you at home." 

\- 

For a while, things are normal. 

If you call fucking your partner slash roommate and then never ever speaking of it again _normal._

Which he technically _doesn't_ , but then again it doesn't really matter what he thinks. 

She puts a queen size in the spare bedroom and starts paying him rent and things are... well, whatever it is that they are. All he knows is that she's eating better, she's sleeping better, and that's pretty much all he cares about. And he completely blames her for this mother-hen complex he's developed, _thank you very much._

The closest they ever come to talking about it is one morning in the bathroom. He's leaving, she's coming. She stops him at the door, points to the red scar on is left side, reaches her hand out to touch it.

"That looks bad," she says. 

"Yeah, I fucked it up when..." he trails off. "When I was moving some furniture," he says obliquely. "Earlier." 

A blush floods Linden's cheeks, and really, it's all he can do to not lift her up and set her on the bathroom counter.

"We both know I wasn't moving no furniture, Linden," he whispers, his voice a growl, stepping closer to her over the threshold.

"Yeah, well. You should get that looked at," she tells him, shutting the bathroom door.

\- 

It isn't long until some patsy confesses to the Larsen murder.

Both Holder and Linden know the whole thing is bullshit but you can't exactly argue with a full confession, not when the kid, and he really is just a kid, knows all the shit he knows. Bottom line is, there's not a damn thing either of them can do about it, regardless. 

"Bullshit," he's saying when they hear the news that night after dinner. "Bull-fucking-shit." 

"You've got to be kidding me," Sarah adds. 

And they swear and they shovel ice cream (home made) into their mouths and they stomp around and they make a lot of noise and they talk like they're going to fix this, but the truth is? 

_It's over._

-

When they get separate assignments, Linden starts sneaking into his room at night, crawling into his bed with him, leaving before the morning when she thinks he's still asleep. 

Stephen pretends to sleep, even when she wakes him up, even when they become so entwined that they're just a mess of limbs. (Who's hand is whose?) And even _she_ can't possibly think he's sleeping through this. 

One morning, while she lingers at his doorway, he opens his eyes, catches her staring at him. 

"Hey," she says, bites her bottom lip. 

"C'mere," he says, pats the spot at the bed next to him, still warm from her body heat. 

_After that, she doesn't bother sneaking anymore._

-

Holder tells her about the butterfly.

"I know you don't believe in this stuff or anything, but, I just keep thinking," he says, "you know? Maybe it was a sign or something? From Rosie. Like maybe she's at peace?"

Sarah kisses him, tells him she's sorry she left him out there. "But I don't believe in signs, Stephen," she says.

-

She doesn't laugh enough. 

He gets the feeling she used to laugh a lot more. Like with that Rick guy? Maybe she used to laugh with him. Or maybe Regi or even Jack. But with him, she holds them hostage, like she's got to keep it all inside or it'll all just come tumbling out. 

He traces the curve of her spine with his fingertips, presses a wet kiss against her shoulder, and she shivers.

Maybe this is all she can give. 

_Maybe._

-

Holder knows better than to mention Jack because every time he does she gets this look on her face that stays there for days, like maybe he should start checking his food for rat poisoning or something. 

He gets it. We all got things we don't talk about. Like how he never mentions Little D. or how his sister moved out of town a month back. _Without even telling him, to add insult to injury._

But the thing is, he worries. Because sometimes he feels like this could be a thing: her and him. Like they're not just screwing 'cause it's easy, or because they can't trust no one else and they're simply out of options. Like, _maybe it's for real?_

But... he doesn't mention that either. 

Like he said, _we all got things we don't talk about._

_-fin_


End file.
